New 'Three Musketeers' ... from Director of 'Death Race' and 'Resident Evil'

In the muddled pre-production slates of Hollywood, we have rival Easter Bunny movies, two directors looking for the Roman Ninth Legion or its Eagle, and now The Three Musketeers have two revivals in the works. One is over at Millennium Films, and the latest is being prepped by Paul W.S. Anderson for Constantin and Impact. Anderson's is the, er, wild card since he's planning to bring us the blue-frocked ones in 3-D. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Anderson has penned the screenplay with British script stalwart Andrew Davies, who Jane Austen aficinados will always remember as the man who had Mr. Darcy jump into a lake.

This film is aiming to remake the Musketeers in a modern mold, and not just by having their rapiers reach out of the screen to whip you in the face. "We are definitely modernizing The Three Musketeers without compromising the fun of shooting a period piece," said Anderson. "But in our film, corsets and feathered hats don't take center stage. Our version is rich in eye-popping action, romance and adventure." Which is, if I recall my Dumas, very much part of his original story as well. But hey, let's allow them to think they're reinventing the wheel.

The latest version of The Three Musketeers is aiming to film on location in France and Germany, and hoping to have the 3-D swashbucklers in theaters by 2011. In the meantime, I'm pondering a 3-D treatment of the scene D'Artagnan fleeing Milady's room stark naked, and hoping that doesn't come to pass.